Addicted Bristol: Fags and Booze, Coffee and All Things Sweet

How is your January detox going? To help you in your efforts our walk this evening offers insights into addiction through the centuries!

Tobacco is surely the big one when it comes to drug use! In Castle Park we will hear the story of the Wills family and how they became Imperial Tobacco. We will learn just how central the role of ‘coffin nails’ were to the prosperity of the city.

Moving on to alcohol we meet the Harvey family and discover the origins of their Bristol Cream.

Sugar is next on our list of addictions and we will consider aspects of the maritime history of what was once Britain’s second port. We will acknowledge the place of the slave trade in Bristol’s past.

Joseph Fry patented a method of grinding cocoa beans in 1795 and in 1847 Fry’s launched the first modern day chocolate bar. We will identify the site of Fry’s first factory and hear the story of how takeover after takeover has left us with a rather bland and homogenised chocolate industry. We will also hear of valiant attempts to reverse this trend.

The story of coffee will be explored and the role it played in the day-to-day business of Bristol’s eighteenth century shipping merchants. We will also discover the radical place of coffee in the emergence of newspaper reading and our modern media industry.

In an attempt to get us all back on track before the end of our walk we will examine the efforts of the various temperance societies that emerged in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These aimed to keep the working people of Bristol on the straight and narrow.

As is our custom a copy of Steve's historical research notes will be sent out after the event to help you hold on to what you have learned from this special tour.

A Walk in the Past is a friendly group where regulars and newcomers are always welcome. Our aim is to combine a good walk with pleasant company in historic landscapes.